A DICK and a HOOR: The Longest, Hardest, Wettest Twitch

Back on December 5th, I received an e-mail from Port McNeill resident Jackie Hildering about a bird that she thought might be a Hooded Oriole.  It's a good thing I was sitting on a couch because the attached photo would have knocked me to the floor if I was on a chair or stool!  The extremely crisp, full-frame shot showed a healthy, vibrant male Hooded Oriole in winter plumage.  After a few days of correspondence with Jackie, it appeared like the Hooded Oriole was setting up shop in the neighbourhood along Broughton Ave.

The birders were slow to trickle in to the area to search for this exotic stray from the south.  Christopher Stephens made the run up from the Parksville area on December 17th and was rewarded not only with the Hooded Oriole but also a first-winter Harris' Sparrow.  The plot thickened on December 28th when Alex Gray made the trip up to view the oriole and miraculously pulled a Dickcissel out of a flock of House Sparrows!

I was far too busy in the beginning of December to zip up for the Hooded Oriole and I became downright antsy about the situation when the Dickcissel was added to the suite of good birds in Port McNeill while I was in Ontario for three weeks over the holidays.  I was biting my nails for a week and a half hoping that the provincial rarity duo would stick around until I returned.  Finally, as the end of my eastern swing was approaching, a plan was hatched to head up with Jeremy Kimm and Kevin Neill.

Today was the day our plan came to fruition.  I met with Jeremy K. at 6:30 a.m. and we met Kevin at the Departure Bay ferry terminal shortly after 8:00 a.m.  Our back-and-forth e-mails leading into this twitch made it evident that our target birds would be a source of lowbrow humour due to their unfortunate four-letter codes.  Yes... we were looking for a DICK and HOOR and the jokes were writing themselves.

The next four hours were the hardest part of any twitch.  We had to cover 350 km before we even had a chance of finding the sought-after vagrants.  The stretch from Nanaimo to Campbell River went by quickly, but the roads became a little dicey along higher-elevation stretches as snow flurries carpeted the highway.  Jeremy K. handled those sections nicely and we reached Port McNeill in the early afternoon, a little later than expected due to the poor weather.

The flurries seen in the higher passes were replaced by driving rain in Port McNeill.  We donned our rain gear and braved the optics-unfriendly weather.  We immediately heard House Sparrows but were momentarily distracted by the Yellow-rumped Warbler that has been frequenting the same hummingbird feeders as the Hooded Oriole.  When we tracked down the flock of House Sparrows, it was not long until a yellow-washed bird was spotted in the mix.  If I had to weight our targets, the Dickcissel held a higher priority because Kevin had already been up for the oriole and Jeremy K. had found a female Hooded Oriole in late September.  The Dickcissel was actually a lifer for Jeremy K. and a BC bird for Kevin.  The Hooded Oriole actually held a higher allure to me because I had never seen one in North America, whereas Dickcissel was only a BC bird for me.  Before we really had a chance to soak in good views of the Dickcissel, it flew off with the rest of the House Sparrows.

I headed back to watch the oriole-approved hummingbird feeders for a while and after 15 minutes I decided to walk further along Broughton Blvd. in hopes of connecting with the oriole or reconnecting with the Dickcissel.  I only managed a Eurasian Collared-Dove  for my effort and as I made my way back I saw Kevin excitedly motioning for me to come back.  The oriole was at the feeders and the Dickcissel was back where we originally spotted it.  What an amazing Patagonia Picnic Table Effect for one little neighbourhood on northern Vancouver Island in the winter!

Despite our observations being hampered by the non-stop hard rain, we had great views of both target birds.  My hands were chilled and the light was horrible, but I decided I would still do my best to photograph the Dickcissel.  The Hooded Oriole was a little too far to bother even getting a record shot, but I figured I could manage some so-so Dickcissel shots.

The yellow accents in the supercilium and malar, yellow wash down the chest, and chestnut patch on the shoulder made this Dickcissel stand out from the House Sparrows it is travelling among.

The Dickcissel above a pair of House Sparrows, for comparison.

Kevin and Jeremy K. were focusing their efforts on warming up and drying off and I was certainly ready to do the same after spending over five minutes without gloves photographing the Dickcissel.  We had a leisurely lunch at Gus' Pub, popped in for a rather fruitless scan off the Cluxewe River Estuary, and then headed back south.  I left my place at 6:15 a.m. and got back at 9:30 p.m., which made for one of the longest twitches I've ever done.  The recipe for a great twitch is good company and success finding the targets.  Needless to say, this was a great twitch!  Now I am just hoping something interesting will turn up over on the Lower Mainland so we can do it all again with Kevin in the driver's seat!

Citrine Wagtail Twitch!

Citrine Wagtail (Motacilla citreola) had only knowingly graced North American soil once before November 14th, 2012.  The first record was a mind-boggling two-day affair from Starkville, Mississippi just over 20 years ago.  On the 14th, Dave and Adele Routledge decided to check the birds down a seemingly random farm road in the Comox Valley.  The whole Comox Valley looks great for birding, with the Courtenay River Estuary being one of the most obvious features.  Why Dave and Adele chose to head to the other side of Comox Rd. that day and head down that dirt lane is a mystery, but they were amply rewarded for thinking outside the box!  Having experienced Yellow Wagtail some 50 years ago back in England, Dave knew he was looking at a wagtail when he found an unusual grey-and-white bird bobbing its tail.  He made several keen observations and presumed it was a Yellow Wagtail.  The description left no doubt that he had observed a wagtail, but no diagnostic features that separated it from other wagtails were mentioned.  I felt obliged to inquire why he thought it was a Yellow - an Eastern Yellow Wagtail (M. tschutschensis) to be precise with modern taxonomy - and not one of other potential options.  I mentioned Grey Wagtail (M. cinerea) and White Wagtail (M. alba) as other likely candidates to show up, but didn't even think of adding Citrine to the mix as it had never been recorded in Alaska.

Dave decided he had better go back out and go over the identification in greater detail.  Amazingly, he returned to the wagtail's original location two days later and managed to relocate it.  After longer looks in better light, the identification shifted towards the White Wagtail camp based on the more plain-faced appearance, grey back, two broad white wing bars, and white forehead.  The feature that didn't add up for White, though, was the lack of any kind of black markings on the chest.  At this point, no photos had been taken but the shifted identification and up-to-date sighting put a handful of birders into action the next day.  Mike Bentley was one of the few that made the journey and he came prepared with his camera and finally the bird was documented!  Once the photos were posted to BCVIBIRDS, the real excitement began.  Word soon spread that this looked like a classic 1st-winter Citrine Wagtail.  I grabbed my Birds of East Asia field guide, thumbed through to the wagtails, and could immediately tell why I couldn't come to grips with the bird being one of three more expected wagtail species.  CITRINE... expletive deleted... WAGTAIL!

Luckily I had already made travel arrangements to go up and see the wagtail.  Jeremy Kimm and I had just attempted a big day on Saturday and decided rest was for the weak.  He was a real trooper and picked me up at 5 a.m. even though I was the wrong direction.  We picked up his brother, Jason, in Duncan on the way up to the Comox Valley and the three of us were on location just after 8:30 a.m.  I rarely make my way up to the Comox Valley, so I was able to put some unfamiliar faces to familiar names as Dave Robinson, Art Martell, and Terry Thormin were there scouring the area for the wagtail.  Additionally, one familiar-yet-enigmatic face was in attendance as Keith Taylor had made the drive up the night before to be there for first light, and Mike Yip was sporting the long lens in hopes of getting some primo documentation.  They informed us they had not yet located the wagtail.  That all changed five minutes later when Art scanned around edge of the southwest corner of the field.  I was right alongside Art when he exclaimed "There it is!"  He notified the others and soon we were all taking in full frame views of the bird in our scopes!

The field marks were all there for a 1st-winter Citrine Wagtail: white completely framing its grizzled auriculars, a clean grey back with no hints of olive or brown, white supercilia connected by white over the bill, immaculate white undertail coverts, and two bold, white wing bars.

The next task was to get some photos to document the bird.  After all, we were dealing with a first Canadian and second confirmed North American record.  The bird was quite cooperative and everyone was very respectful of the bird's space, knowing that birders from the Lower Mainland were on their way.  Eventually I managed to get some decent shots when the Citrine Wagtail was at its closest.  I even took some poor footage of the bird to document its call.  Later we were joined by a half-dozen or more Lower Mainland birders that made the ferry trip over and, needless to say, they were happy twitchers!  I don't think I need any more commentary on this amazing bird, but I will close this out with a big congratulations to Dave and Adele Routledge for their amazing find!

Giant crowd... from a British Columbia perspective!

My recording was sent to Brent Beach and Ian Cruickshank to try to enhance its quality.  Ian kindly put the recording up on xeno-canto and I managed to figure out how to embed it here:


The above recording has a bland X-ray style sonogram, but you can enjoy Ian's Amazing Technicolor Dream Sonogram below: